My son and I were sitting on my patio watching planes and meteorites when we notice some satellites. My patio faces to the east. I noticed a third satellite to our north which was traveling southbound. As I told my son "there's another one" he turned and looked when suddenly it emitted a huge brilliant flash which lit up the entire night sky around it. We were both surprised and commented we had never seen anything like that before, and wondered what it was. It seemed strange enough to report if for no other reason than to see if this is normal for satellites. The object continued traveling and a high speed maintaining its southern course. We did not observe any flashing lights like we always see on planes, and it appeared to be much to high to be a plane or drone. I wish we had caught we saw on our cell phones but it happened much to quickly.